Market watch: KSE-100 rebounds, ends just shy of 46,000

KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Friday staged a rebound and resumed its uptrend due to overall optimism on the back of some positive triggers.

A rally was witnessed on bets of status quo in the monetary policy announcement due next week on Friday (May 28).

On the other hand, news reports indicating that Pakistan would achieve a surplus in its current account balance in the ongoing fiscal year and anticipation of a business-friendly budget acted as a catalyst and spurred investor interest.

The KSE-100 index shot up from the moment trading began. However, frequent dips were witnessed at regular intervals.

Nonetheless, bulls dominated both the sessions as investors cheered the easing of Covid-related restrictions in the country, which snapped a two-day losing streak at the bourse.

At close, the benchmark KSE-100 index recorded an increase of 340.91 points, or 0.75%, to settle at 45,914.98.

In its report, Arif Habib Limited stated that the resolution of a dispute between members of the ruling party as well as anticipation of tax incentives for industries in the upcoming budget helped the KSE-100 index put up a formidable addition of 374 points during the session.

Deferral of planned privatisation of Oil and Gas Development Company and Pakistan Petroleum resulted in a rebound in stock prices of both companies.

Bank, cement and steel sectors also contributed positively to the benchmark KSE-100 index. An incentive proposal for the refinery sector paved the way for National Refinery, Attock Refinery and Pakistan Refinery to post gains.

Sectors contributing to the performance included banks (+116 points), exploration and production (+68 points), cement (+31 points), oil and gas marketing companies (+29 points) and auto (+29 points).

Individually, stocks that contributed positively to the index included HBL (+32 points), Pakistan Petroleum (+31 points), Oil and Gas Development Company (+28 points), UBL (+25 points) and Pakistan State Oil (+20 points).

Stocks that contributed negatively were Hascol Petroleum (-8 points), Pakistan International Bulk Terminal (-6 points), Colgate-Palmolive (-4 points), TRG Pakistan (-4 points) and PSX (-4 points).

JS Global analyst Muhammad Mubashir said that the KSE-100 index remained volatile as it moved between intra-day high and low of 45,948 and 45,560 points.

Volume leaders of the day were WorldCall Telecom (+6.8%), Byco Petroleum (-1.4%), Hascol Petroleum (-5.3%), K-Electric (+1.4%), Summit Bank (+62.9%) and Pakistan Refinery (+2.4%), which contributed a cumulative 46% to the aggregate volume of 710 million shares.

News that Pakistan Refinery was ready to undertake upgrading projects worth nearly $1.2 billion generated interest of market participants in the share.

An important event in the coming rollover week is the monetary policy announcement on May 28, 2021.

“We expect to see high volatility as the market enters its resistance area between 46,400 and 46,900. The market is likely to continue its bullish momentum next week,” the analyst said.

Overall trading volumes fell to 710.4 million shares compared with Thursday’s tally of 784 million. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs19.7 billion.

Shares of 408 companies were traded. At the end of the day, 276 stocks closed higher, 110 declined and 22 remained unchanged.

WorldCall Telecom was the volume leader with 99.5 million shares, gaining Rs0.12 to close at Rs1.88. It was followed by Byco Petroleum with 67.7 million shares, losing Rs0.14 to close at Rs10.12 and Hascol Petroleum with 48.5 million shares, losing Rs0.6 to close at Rs10.71.

Foreign institutional investors were net sellers of Rs0.62 million worth of shares during the trading session, according to data compiled by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan.